After the Boiling Point
by xrho
Summary: Remus can't sleep and is wallowing a bit. Molly makes cocoa. Set early on in HBP, but unrelated. No ship.


When he was little, Remus' mother used to say that making candy was just like making potions, but with more sugar and less chance of turning yourself green. Or dead, Remus thought now, but his mother had never said that. She used to make taffy that melted on the tip of his tongue, and sweet mint drops with little flowers, drawn in with sugar quills.

He'd never been any good at potions.

She used to make _chocolate_.

A sharp crack split the chilly autumn's night silence and Remus flew back to the present, staring into the noisy, crackling fireplace with straining, too-wide eyes, as if his eyelashes were Spell-O-Taped to his eyebrows. He wished they were. He'd spent far too many nights now sleeping, dreaming, waking in a cold sweat with his breath coming in gasps and childish, unaf_ford_able tears threatening his eyes. He couldn't face that again, quite yet. He was tired of sleep.

Of course, here he was _awake_ and dreaming, so why not go to bed and have done with?

Except that his daydreams were comfortable, memories mostly. It was good to know he had been happy once, really, truly, unquestionably happy. You're getting bitter in your old age, he told himself, grinning. Hah. That was his happiness now – irony and bemusing misfortunes, and fitful, faded, bittersweet memories. Bitter. Like burnt coffee, scalded with boiling water, water heated too much, too long. Like burnt candy, syrup taken past the boiling point and not worth eating anymore. His mother wouldn't have eaten it, anyway. He probably would have. Remus Lupin took what was given to him. Most of the time.

His treacherous eyelids were sinking lower again, twitching down by degrees in tandem with the faint pounding at the back of his skull. He was tired, dead tired, exhausted, still, from the moon three weeks before – the third moon since Sirius' death. He shouldn't be so tired. He should sleep. He didn't have health to squander, with a full moon in, what, six-? Remus pushed himself up out of his armchair by the fire, craning around to check the time on the Black family grandfather clock in the hall. Five days until the moon, then. And it was much, much too late to be daydreaming, or moping, for that matter.

He sat up tall like that, poised to haul his spindly body out of the overstuffed, slightly dingy armchair, for a full minute, contemplating a long haul up the staircase and to bed. Finally he sighed, quite disgusted with himself, and collapsed back into the plush cushions.

The fire licked up, white-hot tongues of flame caressing hissing, snapping, ungrateful logs, red-hot tendrils dancing warmly, inviting in the close, forbidding air. The light flickered, changing, never exactly as it had ever been before, never dying out, just glowing on and on and _on_ through the lonely night.

Remus didn't notice the morning sunlight creeping under the thick, black velvet curtains until the front door clicked open and slammed shut a moment later with a heart-pounding thrang. He sat up dead straight and stared, overly alert, through the sitting room door into the front hall, gripping the arms of his chair with knuckle-cracking force even before he'd truly registered the noise, tense and almost quivering. He realized it was daylight in the same instant as a cheery "Helloooo!" echoed down the hall, and he reclined, heart still thumping painfully against his ribs.

Molly Weasley's head popped through the doorway, all just-a-bit-too-bright smiles and not-quite-as-bright-as-it-used-to-be red hair. "_There _you are!" she exclaimed, "Oh, I'm so glad I didn't wake you. I thought it might be a tad bit too early to be dropping by, but I really couldn't help myself. Nothing to do today, you see. I do _hate _it when I'm not of use, you know. Well, of course, you know. I've been bustling through here often enough, I suppose. Just needed something to do with my hands is all. And this place is a bit of a fixer-upper, isn't it now? Thought I could bring in the Prophet," she said, waving the paper up by her head. She must have brought it from The Burrow. Owls didn't fly to No. 12 Grimmauld Place. "…fix some breakfast, have a nice chat, take my mind off certain identical mischief makers, certain to be making identical mischief. Ha!" And she paused, having run quite out of breath.

"Ah. Yes," she said, casting a shrewd eye over Remus' loose, patched robes, just now noticing the tired slump of his shoulders and the darker-even-than-normal circles under his eyes. "Yes, you could do with a bit of fattening up, couldn't you? I dare say, you look a bit of a fright, Remus. Are you well?"

He smiled, albeit tight and self-consciously. "Yes, thank you. You startled me, that's all."

Her eyebrows went up and she looked at him expectantly, waiting.

His smile broadened, but shaded bitter. "I suppose I'm just a bit tired. What about you, Molly? The twins are up to no good?"

She gave him a stern look, a don't-try-that-with-me-mister look, and ignored the change in topic. "Tired? Well then, you really should still be in bed. It's early yet, and surely there's nothing pressing for you to do until you've made your report tonight. Come on then," she said, waving him up, "Off you go. I think I'll have a bit of a clean in here. Yes, out of the way then. To bed with you."

Remus wasn't having it. "That's alright, Molly," he said, smiling still, but firm, "It's morning. It would be silly to go to bed now."

That got him a full (frontal) Mothering-Molly look, and he cast his eyes to the carpet. "Surely you haven't been up all night?" she asked, "Remus?"

He didn't answer, but she knew, and she hefted a heavy, pitying, whatever-am-I-to-do-with-you sigh. "Where's Tonks?" she asked, abruptly.

He looked up. "Working, I suppose."

"You _suppose_? Hmmph! Well, _I _suppose this is about her, yes? Again? _Really_, Remus -"

"It's not about that," he said, "That – well, we'll figure it out." Or really, Tonks already had 'it' all figured out for the both of them. He sighed. "I just – couldn't sleep."

She considered him for a long minute, her eyes piercing the sudden, uncomfortable silence. He let his eyes slip down, away from hers.

"All right, then," she said, finally, "You wait here. I'll be back in a jiff."

She disappeared out the sitting room door, and Remus sank back into the armchair, trying not to drift away. He'd been called back to life again. How unfortunate.

Molly returned a few moments later, carrying two bowls perhaps a bit over-filled with hot cocoa. "Here you are," she said, brightly, "Makes everything better, I've found."

Remus' thin smile returned, and he reached up to take a large, shining black bowl, cupping it in both hands. "Thank you," he said, "You didn't have to."

"Oh, hush," Molly replied, smiling anyway. "Try it."

The dark cocoa was surprisingly sweet, and rich. It was perfect, and not burnt at all (his always was). His first sip of that lulling warmth took the chill from his thin, weary body in a way that a whole night by a crackling fire had not.

"This is wonderful," Remus said, and meant it, offering up his first true smile of the day. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome. I spent a good year perfecting my cocoa. It's that important, you see. Really, it's a bit like making potions," she said, "Only better tasting and less likely to shrink anything," and she giggled. Molly Weasley, firm and unflappable mother of seven, giggled. "Well," she went on, "I suppose it's not much of a secret, really. You just have to try not to boil it. It burns, you know. It gets bitter."

She stopped talking, puzzled by the way Remus was looking at her, a touch of admiration shading his face, a creeping grin lighting his shadowed eyes.

"Yes," he said, after a moment, "I suppose it does." He lifted his chin, looking at her intently. "What then?"

She raised her eyebrows. "If it burns?"

He nodded. She shrugged.

"A bit of sugar, sweeten it up some more, and it's as good as new, really. No use crying over burnt milk," she grinned, "No big deal. I suppose that's how it's not quite like potions. They do funny things when you get them wrong. Why, Merlin! Bitsy Braddock! You probably haven't heard of her. She was a Hufflepuff girl in my year at Hogwarts, never came to much. _Any_way, we had Potions together and…"

She went on and on and _on_. Her warm voice drifted through the room until Remus drifted off to sleep. Then she smiled to herself, rescued Remus' empty cocoa bowl, covered him with a blanket, and bustled off, busying herself with cleaning until the meeting that night.


End file.
